Term ‘Tudor’ has become grossly distorting

 

 

 

“If ‘Tudor’ is misleading about the royal family, the common designation

‘Tudor subjects’, ‘Tudor men and women’ having ‘Tudor attitudes’, is even more so. There is no evidence that people thought of themselves as such”.

Clifford S. L. Davies

 

Dr Cliff Davies (d. 2016), a former history tutor at Oxford’s Wadham College, wrote:

 

The Tudors; Name and Implications

 May I augment and correct the summary of my article ‘A rose by any other name’ (Times Literary Supplement, 13 June 2008, pp. 14-15) which appeared in The Ricardian, volume 19 (2009), page 173. The summary misrepresents the main point. My argument is now repeated as part of my ‘Reputation, repute, reality’, a review article in English Historical Review volume 124 (2009) pages 1432-1447.1

Far from arguing that the name ‘Tudor’ was wrongly attached to Henry VII, I do not dispute that his surname, had he used one, would have been ‘Tudor’. (The point that it could as easily have been ‘Meredith’ was merely a wry comment on the hazards of converting Welsh pattonymics into English surnames.)

 

Hence ‘Tydder’ was rightly used by Richard III, and later by Perkin Warbeck, to disparage Henry’s antecedents.2 It drew attention to the somewhat scandalous marriage of Henry’s grandfather Owen Tudor, a Welsh gentleman courtier, to Queen Catherine, widow of Henry V and princess of the French royal line. Precisely for that reason, the word was avoided by Henry, who, pre-Bosworth, was referred to by his supporters by his peerage title of ‘Richmond’.3 More generally, royal families had little or no occasion to use surnames. ‘Tudor’ was not used by or about the royal family in the period 1485-1603. The name had some resonance in Wales, and seeps back to some extent in English works from1589. Even so it is remarkable how few contemporary commentators in 1603 to a transition from ‘Tudors’ to ‘Stuarts’.

 

The obsessive use of the word ‘Tudor’ by modern historians gives a false impression, of Sixteenth Century reality. There seems to be an entity called ‘Tudor monarchy’, for instance; take away the assumption that such an entity existed, and it becomes difficult to see anything distinctively in common between the régimes of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I, let alone those of Edward VI and Mary I (oddly always designated ‘Mary Tudor’ by historians, a designation with no contemporary warrant⁴). This is not to deny that both Mary and Elizabeth made much of themselves as daughters of Henry VIII, perhaps because of their technical illegitimacy. Almanacs of around 1600 make much more of Luther’s defiance of the Papacy, of Henry VIII’s break with Rome, and of Elizabeth’s accession, than they do of 1485. In so far as Henry VII had a hereditary claim to the throne, (as opposed to the concepts of ‘conquest’ or ‘victory’ indicating God’s will) it came very dubiously through his mother’s Beaufort lineage from a bastard son, subsequently legitimised, of John of Gaunt.5

References to the ancient ‘British History’, to descent from Cadwaldr and connection to King Arthur, were made without specific reference to Owen Tudor, though Owen was indeed descended from Welsh princes (as of course were also Edward IV and his brothers through the Mortimer line).

References to Edmund [Tudor], Earl of Richmond, were again made without reference to Owen, to assert his descent from the French royal family.6 In practice both Henry’s invasion in 1485 and his subsequent position were enormously strengthened by the support of anti-Ricardian Yorkists and his eventual marriage to Elizabeth of York. Though acknowledging this, Henry was reluctant to publicise it once his position became established, and always maintained that, even if Elizabeth were to die without issue, any subsequent children of his own would have full rights of inheritance.7 In general, Henry VII was evasive on the whole issue of his rights. Henry VIII had no such inhibitions, of course, and could celebrate his own embodiment as ‘The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families Lancastre and Yorke’.8 Far from picturing themselves as a ‘dynasty’ the ‘Tudor’ monarchs always claimed to represent the reunification of the ancient royal house, unhappily divided by a family quarrel in the Fifteenth Century. Interestingly, both Henry VIII and Elizabeth Iseem to have valued their Yorkist descent far more than their somewhat indirect Lancastrian connection.9

If ‘Tudor’ is misleading about the royal family, the common designation ‘Tudor subjects’, ‘Tudor men and women’ having ‘Tudor attitudes’, is even more so. There is no evidence that people thought of themselves as such. The term gives a false sense of unity to the 118 years in question. It also makes it difficult to avoid the insidious but obviously false impression that somehow the Henrician Reformation or the glories of Elizabethan England were implicit in the reign of Henry VII; an impression buried deep in the sub-consciousness of historians and their readers, even though rationally absurd. Historians cannot help but use, from time to time, anachronistic terms. My own use of ‘Sixteenth Century’ is a case in point. ‘Tudor’ is, however, a special case. It has acquired such resonance, for the most part of glamour and glory, in some cases of deep-dyed villainy, as to be grossly distorting. A self-denying ordinance about its use, or at least a note of caution when it is used, might be in order while the implications of my argument sink in and are worked through.

 

See also Damien Mackey’s articles:

 

Horrible Histories: Turpitudinous Tudors

 

(3) Horrible Histories: Turpitudinous Tudors

 

Anne Boleyn ‘a Jezebel and harlot’

 

(3) Anne Boleyn 'a Jezebel and harlot'

 

John Fisher and John Baptist parallels

 

(3) John Fisher and John Baptist parallels

 

Parallel Lives -Thomas Becket and Thomas More

 

(3) Parallel Lives -Thomas Becket and Thomas More

Galileo wasn’t the father of anything

 

“Take off the superhero garb placed on him by his later biographers,

and it is clear that Galileo wasn’t the father of anything. He didn’t invent

the scientific method. He wasn’t the first to apply mathematics to science,

nor did he discover the first mathematical law of science”.

 Thony Christie

  

Galileo’s reputation is more hyperbole than truth | Aeon Ideas

 

Galileo’s reputation is more hyperbole than truth

 

Thony Christie

 

If you ask people to name the greatest scientist of all time, many will most probably answer: Galileo. In the popular presentations of the history of science, he is portrayed as a one-man revolution, an intellectual superhero who dragged science kicking and screaming into the modern era. Even Stephen Hawking validates this view: ‘Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science,’ he wrote in A Brief History of Time (1990). In popular books and websites, Galileo is regularly credited as the inventor of the scientific method, the first to apply mathematics to science, the discoverer of the first mathematical law of science, and on and on.

 

The descriptions sound too good to be true – and they are. Galileo’s vast reputation, and the hyperbolic accolades that go with it, are not justified by the real history. With a corrected perspective on the man comes a rich and compelling pair of questions: what did Galileo actually achieve, and where does the science superhero image come from?

 

In 1609, Galileo Galilei was a 45-year-old, largely unknown, north Italian professor of mathematics, a profession with a low social status, well on his way to total obscurity. He had produced his brilliant experimental demonstrations of the laws of falling bodies years earlier but had not published them. He was known among his circle of friends as a purveyor of good wines and a castigating, razor-sharp wit. Then Galileo stumbled upon the recently invented telescope and began the astronomical observations that would make him famous. Realising that he had lucked onto the scientific equivalent of winning the lottery, he rushed into print in early 1610.

 

Overnight, Galileo became the most renowned astronomer in Europe. However, he was not the only telescopic astronomical observer at the time, and all the discoveries he made were made independently and contemporaneously by others in Britain, Germany, even Italy. This point is hard to reconcile with the modern myth because even if Galileo had never used a telescope, it would not have changed anything in the history of astronomy.

 

Having parlayed his discoveries into a new position as court philosopher and mathematician to the Medici in Florence, Galileo’s fame rested largely on those telescopic discoveries and his demolition of scientific opponents in public debates and in his writing. Although his defence of Copernicanism – presented in his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) – brought him that notorious Inquisition trial and house arrest, it did not, as popular opinion has it, win the day for heliocentricity. That honour goes to the much duller tomes of Johannes Kepler, whose work Galileo had ignored in his own volume.

 

In all his scientific endeavours, Galileo did not stand alone, as he is often presented. Rather, as with the telescopic discoveries, he was part of a sizable community all working on the same problems. Even his greatest scientific work, the Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (1638), was shadowed by the independent work of others, such as the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin and the Dutch natural philosopher Isaac Beeckman.

 

Galileo achieved considerable fame in his lifetime, but in the 17th century his reputation rested firmly on his telescopic discoveries. His contribution to the debate over the heliocentric view of the solar system was rather minimal, and despite the best efforts of Marin Mersenne (the century’s greatest science communicator) to publicise his Discourses, they didn’t have that great an impact.

 

Today it is often claimed that Galileo is one of the giants on whose shoulders Newton stood, but he plays a rather minor role in Newton’s masterwork, Principia Mathematica (1687). By the 18th century, Galileo was slipping into obscurity outside of Italy. Then he experienced a remarkable resurrection.

 

Bottom of Form

Galileo’s rise to immortality starts at the end of the 18th century. In this period, scientific biography started to become popular, and Galileo became a favourite subject, largely because of his persecution by the Catholic Church. This effect was immensely magnified by the largely mythical war between science and religion in the late 19th century, waged by two US-based scientist-historians, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. They wrote passionately about religion as an obstacle to the forces of progress, and advanced a self-congratulatory thesis in which Western civilisation had steadily emerged from the ignorance of the Dark Ages to the modern age of Enlightenment. This was an outgrowth of the broader rejection of the dominance of religious thought, which had emerged in Europe during the Enlightenment and had been enthusiastically adopted by influential American intellectual figures including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

 

To fit into this narrative, Galileo was presented as a solitary hero defending Copernicanism against the ignorance and prejudice of the Church.

 

Draper and White also promoted the notion that medieval scholars, blinded by theology, had believed the world was flat – another myth that has wormed its way into generally accepted truth.

 

Galileo’s elevation to scientific sainthood was aided by his sharply worded publications. His talents as a scientist were considerable, if overrated, but his greatest skill was, without doubt, that of a writer. His scientific publications are masterpieces of rhetoric and polemic, delightful to read, informative and entertaining. The Discourses, his most important scientific work, contains beautiful illustrations by Galileo himself, proving that he was also an able artist. In comparison, the works of Kepler, Stevin and their contemporaries are turgid and boring, difficult to read and to comprehend. By the early 20th century, more than two centuries after his death, Galileo had fully become the Master of the Universe that his Victorian biographers created.

 

So how should we evaluate Galileo today?

 

Mackey’s comment: I’d like to step in here regarding this question, by referencing my article:

 

Machiavelli in the name Achitophel, Galileo Galilei in the name Gamaliel

 

(3) Machiavelli in the name Achitophel, Galileo Galilei in the name Gamaliel

 

Thony Christie continues:

 

He was a superb experimental scientist and astronomical observer, a gifted instrument-maker, and an inventive theorist, who was among the first rank of investigators developing modern science in the first half of the 17th century. But, and it’s a very big but, he was not alone. Galileo was part of a collective, a whole community of brilliant thinkers who were expanding the boundaries of science.

 

Take off the superhero garb placed on him by his later biographers, and it is clear that Galileo wasn’t the father of anything. He didn’t invent the scientific method. He wasn’t the first to apply mathematics to science, nor did he discover the first mathematical law of science. His telescopic observations were exquisite, but not unique. He did make several important contributions to the development of both science and technology, and he presented his work in exemplary style.

 

I would be tempted to call Galileo primus inter pares – first among equals – within the scientific community of his time, were it not for Kepler, the mathematical visionary who deduced the orbital shapes and laws of motion that guide the movements of the planets. Although he enjoys a far less popular reputation, Kepler contributed more than Galileo to the development of modern science. You might more properly acclaim him as a hero. Most accurately, though, you would recognise science for what it truly is: a group activity of great minds collaborating, challenging and goading each other into the unknown.

 

 

 

Traces of Hadrian in Porphyry a fictive purple man from Tyre

 

by

Damien F. Mackey

  

Well, I saw the thing comin' out of the sky
It had a-one long horn and one big eye (Ooh!)
I commenced to shakin' and I said, "Ooh-eee!
It looks like a purple people eater to me!"

 

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater
(One-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater)
A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater
Sure looks strange to me (One eye?)

 

Well, he came down to Earth and he laid in a tree
I said, "Mr. Purple People Eater, don't eat me!"
I heard him say in a voice so gruff:
"I wouldn't eat you 'cause you're so tough"

 

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater
One-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater ….

I said, "Mr. Purple People Eater, what's your line?"
He said, "It's eatin' purple people and it sure is fine
But that's not the reason that I came to land
I wanna get a job in a rock and roll band".

  

That is about as real, I think, as Porphyry gets, joining a conga line of ancient fictitious composite characters (e.g. philosophers), such as for instance:

 

Thales of Miletus

 

First philosopher, Thales, likely a Greek borrowing from Joseph of Egypt

 

(3) First philosopher, Thales, likely a Greek borrowing from Joseph of Egypt

 

Apollonius of Tyana and Philo

 

Apollonius of Tyana, like Philo, a fiction

 

(3) Apollonius of Tyana, like Philo, a fiction

 

Socrates

 

‘Socrates’ as a Prophet

 

(3) ‘Socrates’ as a Prophet

 

Buddha

 

Buddha partly based on Moses

 

(3) Buddha partly based on Moses

 

and many, many more.

 

These are generally characters about whom we read that phrase repeated ad nauseam: “Little is known about …”.

 

In some cases these supposedly ground-breaking thinkers wrote absolutely nothing, or, at least, have left us nothing of any writings that they might have scribbled down.

 

Thales of Miletus | Biography & Facts | Britannica

“No writings by Thales survive, and no contemporary sources exist. Thus, his achievements are difficult to assess. Inclusion of his name in the canon of the legendary Seven Wise Men led to his idealization, and numerous acts and sayings, many of them no doubt spurious, were attributed to him, such as “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess”.”

 

apollonius of tyana little is known - Search

“The life of Apollonius of Tyana is shrouded in mystery and legend. While he is often compared to Jesus Christ due to his miraculous acts and ascetic lifestyle, the historical record of his life is sparse. Most of what is known comes from the Life of Apollonius, a fictional biography written by Philostratus …”.

 

Philo of Alexandria (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

“It is impossible to give precise dates for Philo’s birth. The consensus is that he lived between the end of the first century BCE and the middle of the first century CE …”. 

 

Ancient Fact File: Socrates — The Bristorian

“Little is known about [uh, oh] his early life”.

“Since he never wrote anything down, most of what we know about the ancient Greek philosopher is from the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon. This has given rise to an issue known as the Socratic Problem - contradicting accounts of Socrates’ personality and life make it difficult to ascertain who he really was”.

 

Gautama Buddha - Encyclopedia of Buddhism

“Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order, but do not accept many of the details contained in traditional biographies. …. In her biography of the Buddha, Karen Armstrong writes, “It is obviously difficult, therefore, to write a biography of the Buddha that meets modern criteria, because we have very little information that can be considered historically sound ...”.”

 

Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234-305 AD, conventional dating with double question marks) largely fits this same, vague typos:

 

Porphyry (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

“Little is known with certainty about [uh, oh] his life, except what can be gleaned from his own account of Plotinus’ life, the Life of Plotinus. There is an account of his life in Eunapius’ Lives of Philosophers and Sophists but this account clearly depends on the Life of Plotinus and has little reliable to add”. 

“Porphyry was a prolific author who wrote about a whole range of topics. There are some sixty works attributed to him, but most of them are now lost or survive in mere fragments”. “In reality we do not know anything with certainty about where he lived in the latter half of his life”.

 

Those Hadrianic traces –

(remember that we are comparing a real historical figure to a shadowy, fictional one)

 

Information here about Porphyry taken from:

Porphyry (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

Considered randomly, there is:

 

-         a strong Tyre connection

 

“Porphyry … was a Neoplatonist philosopher born in Tyre in Phoenicia”.

“… Porphyry … a common name in Tyre, the city of purple”.

 

Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’/Hadrian had such a close association with Tyre - “The emperor Hadrian also awarded Tyre the title of metropolis, "mother city"” - that I have identified him as Ezekiel’s:

 

The Fallen King of Tyre

 

(6) The Fallen King of Tyre

 

-         a cultural/political connection with a Longinus, and Athens

 

“Porphyry … studied with Longinus in Athens …”.

 

Hadrian, too, in his alter ego guise as Trajan:

 

Hadrianus Traianus Caesar – Trajan transmutes to Hadrian

 

(9) Hadrianus Traianus Caesar – Trajan transmutes to Hadrian

 

was connected to a Longinus:

Legions of the Dacian Wars - World History Encyclopedia

“In the summer of 104 CE, Decebalus learned that Trajan was rebuilding his forces along the Danube and wanted to know the emperor’s plans. Meeting with Trajan’s legate in Dacia, Pompeius Longinus, to supposedly discuss further peace plans, the king instead chose to hold Longinus as his prisoner”.

 

And, regarding Hadrian and Athens:

Emperor Hadrian: The Roman Visionary Who Transformed Athens - The Acropolis Of Athens

“Among Rome’s many emperors, Emperor Hadrian stands out as a leader with an extraordinary appreciation for Greek culture. Unlike his predecessors, who saw Athens as merely a provincial city within the vast empire, Hadrian revitalized it, ensuring its legacy endured.

His love for Greek philosophy, art, and traditions led him to transform Athens into a thriving cultural and intellectual hub once again. Through his grand architectural projects, including the Olympieion, Hadrian’s Library, and Hadrian’s Arch, Emperor Hadrian reshaped Athens’ landscape, blending Roman imperial ambition with Greek classical elegance.

 

-         a cultural connection with Rome

 

“Porphyry … studied with … Plotinus in Rome …”.

 

The emperor Hadrian, as king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’:

 

Time to consider Hadrian, that ‘mirror-image’ of Antiochus Epiphanes, as also the census emperor Augustus

 

(7) Time to consider Hadrian, that 'mirror-image' of Antiochus Epiphanes, as also the census emperor Augustus

 

“[Antiochus Epiphanes] had been a hostage in Rome before he became king of Syria …” (I Maccabees 1:10).

 

Hadrian | Biography & Facts | Britannica

“The new emperor remained at Rome for three years. ….

Returning to the west coast in 124, he sailed to Athens and finally reached Rome again in 125. …. Hadrian spent another three years in Rome, but in 128 he set forth again. After a visit to North Africa, he went to Athens …”. 

 

Instead of the influence of a Plotinus, with Hadrian we have a favourably disposed empress, Plotina: Hadrian | Biography & Facts | Britannica

“The greatest single political figure behind the emperor Trajan was the man who had masterminded his elevation, Lucius Licinius Sura. Hadrian enjoyed Sura’s favour, and, as long as he was alive, Hadrian prospered. Trajan’s wife, Plotina, seems also to have been close to Sura and a partisan of Hadrian”. 

 

-         interest in philosophy, an influential thinker

 

“Porphyry … became a follower of the latter’s [Plotinus] version of Platonism”.

“Porphyry wrote in just about every branch of learning practiced at the time but only a portion of his large output is extant. Porphyry was an influential thinker”. 

 

Emperor Hadrian: Rome’s Visionary Builder, Philosopher, and Heart | Bubbly Living

“[Hadrian’s] journeys weren’t just political; they were philosophical quests. He was deeply influenced by Stoic and Epicurean thought and was known for writing poetry and engaging with scholars. His leadership style blended intellect and introspection, curiosity and culture. In Hadrian, Rome had not only an emperor but a thinker, whose governance echoed his philosophical pursuits”.

 

-         called ‘Basileus’

 

“[Porphyry’s] name was ‘Malcus’, ‘king’ in his native tongue, hence he became ‘Basileus’ (‘king’) in Greek.

 

Hadrian’s alter ego,

Wikipedia

“Antiochus IV Epiphanes, also known as Antiochus IV Basileus, was a significant figure in the history of the Seleucid Empire”. 

-         highly religious and superstitious (magic)

 

“In his monumental study, La vie de Porphyre (1913), Bidez portrayed the young Porphyry as someone prone to religion and superstition”.

 

“Porphyry did not reject magic outright … but he seems to have restricted its efficacy to the sphere of nature and not to have regarded it as a means to establish contact with the intelligible realm as philosophy could do”.

 

From Emperor and Author: The Writings of Julian ‘the Apostate’, p. 307 (edited by Nicholas J. Baker-Brian, Shaun Tougher):

Hadrian is teased as a star–gazer who was forever prying into ineffable mysteries (311d). La Bletterie was prompted to remark that much the same could be said of Julian [the Apostate]: he and Hadrian were both ‘full of zeal for idolatry’, ‘superstitious […] astrologers wanting to know everything, so constantly inquisitive as to be accused of magic‘. And the likeness did not end there: Julian, assuredly, ‘did not have the infamous [homosexual] vices of Hadrian […], but he had almost all his [other] faults and absurdities‘; both of them were ‘fickle, obstinate, and vain of soul’….

 

Chapter 18: Hadrian (A.D. 117–138) | Ecclesiastical History

“The reign of Hadrian presents a paradox. Admired as a cultured intellectual and brilliant administrator, this emperor remains morally enigmatic and religiously elusive”.

 

Against Christianity

 

I had already, some time ago now, identified the Seleucid (Greek) tyrant king, Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, with the emperor Hadrian even before reading of a Jewish legend according to which Hadrian was he who presided over the martyrdom of the woman and her seven sons in 2 Maccabees 7 – narrated in the text as king Antiochus.

“Nameless in 4 Maccabees, the mother is dubbed … Hannah … in the rabbinic tradition …. The tyrant in the rabbinic versions, however, is not Antiochus Epiphanes but Hadrian: “Hadrian came and seized upon a widow …”.” Stephen D. Moore.

 

So, the Greek king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ was the inveterate Grecophile - the supposedly Roman emperor - Hadrian.

 

Some of these Jewish legends can be real game changers!

 

I took the matter further by tentatively suggesting that the martyred woman, traditionally known as Hannah, was the same as the widowed prophetess Anna of Luke 2:36-38, who had seen the Christ Child, “and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem”.

 

Such a vibrant connection is possible only when, as in my greatly revised chronology, the era of Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ and Judas Maccabeus is collapsed into the period of the Nativity:

 

Merging the Maccabean with the Herodian Age

 

(7) Merging the Maccabean with the Herodian Age

 

That dramatic re-casting of early Christianity now enables for the Seleucid king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ to have been a persecutor of those who had actually seen, or proclaimed, the Christ Child.

 

Thus we have the Christian martyrdoms of the emperor Hadrian, the alter ego of Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, having a Maccabean flavour:

 

Hadrianic patterns of martyrdom

 

(7) Hadrianic patterns of martyrdom

 

Consider, for instance, the extraordinary account of Saint Sophia and her children, in which “Antiochus” is here an official serving the emperor Hadrian:

 

Saint Sophia

 

“An official named Antiochus denounced them to the emperor Hadrian …

who ordered that they be brought to Rome. Realizing that they would be taken

before the emperor, the holy virgins prayed fervently to the Lord Jesus Christ,

asking that He give them the strength not to fear torture and death.

When the holy virgins and their mother came before the emperor,

everyone present was amazed at their composure. They looked

as though they had been brought to some happy festival,

rather than to torture”.

 

This story bears remarkable parallels to that of the widow-martyr, Hannah,

in 2  and 4 Maccabees, especially in my revised context according to which

Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ was Hadrian:

 

Now it all gets really bizarre.

 

Porphyry of Tyre - Wikipedia

“In his later years, [Porphyry] married Marcella, a student of philosophy and a widow with seven children” (emphasis added). 

 

I rest my case.

 

The amorphous Porphyry is traditionally considered to have been opposed to Christianity, but intellectually, and not to any bloodthirsty degree:

Porphyry (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

“Against the Christians is perhaps Porphyry’s best known title. Of this large work only some fragments have survived”.

“Somewhat disappointingly, perhaps, the fragments from Against the Christians do not exhibit deep metaphysical disagreements; they are mostly concerned with particular, non-philosophical claims made in the Bible and by Christians that Porphyry finds incredible and objectionable”.

 

Nothing as sadistic and violent as in the case of the people-eating tyrant in purple, Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’/Hadrian, of whom Porphyry appears to be just a vague shadow.